In which Hormones make me Vicious to Stupid People

Scene: Boy and I enter our community pool. Which has gained a layer of floaty styrofoam bits.

Me: WTF? Why is this mess all over the pool? (Yes, I actually do say the initials WTF. Because I’m a geek. Leave it alone.)

Enter Stage Right – Random teenager with her bovine resembling mother. (Seriously, the woman was chewing her own cud, I swear! Not making a size joke, she just had all the hallmarks of stupid on the hoof.)

Tween: The lifeguard said it was salt.

Me: Ah, well…you know, as you move through life, you will find that taking intellectual cues from cute shirtless boys with blank eyes isn’t such a good idea. Them are “fer looking at” boys. Not so much for the talking, really. I think he was probably trying to avoid having to get out the skimmer and do any real work. (Yes, I’ve been a lifeguard, I know not all lifeguards are intellectual midgets…but the ones at *our* pool…too stupid to breathe without a reminder. Really. Neighborhood full of trophy wives. These boys are decorative pool toys.)

BovineMomma: Well, I’m sure the lifeguard knows more than you do about what’s in the pool.

Me: You think so?

BM: Yes. I’m a middle school principal, and I think I know salt when I see it.

Me: Then you are a prime example of why I wouldn’t let my son anywhere near a public school in Texas. I’ll make it simple since I’m sure you majored in Education instead of taking any REAL SCIENCE CLASSES. Let us run through the basic facts, shall we?

Salt, or as it would be known by someone who had ever seen a periodic table; Sodium chloride, is the crystalline compound NaCl, composed of the elements sodium and chloride, and is cubic in nature. These white balls are round and manufactured.

Salt has a heavier molecular weight than water, whereas these objects display buoyancy. That means they float…just in case they haven’t covered buoyancy in the vocabulary part of the TAKS test.

The salt used in saline pools is soluble at 60 degrees F. It’s currently 92 degrees, and the pool temperature is 78 degrees…based on that thermometer right behind you.

Three feet from you is the object from which all of these little styrofoam balls came. You can see it there, if you turn your head to the left. The other left. *I point in the right direction*.

I weep for the generations who come under your idiotic tyranny of self righteous ignorance.

Boy: Hey Momma, don’t forget that you can squish salt and make it disappear when it’s wet, and this stuff doesn’t disappear if you rub it between your fingers!